Cucumber, SpecFlow, and agile testing

Software development teams are under increasing pressure to deliver applications cheaper, faster, and better. As a result, many groups are using some kind of iterative or “agile” development methodology, all with the promise to achieve software faster, better, cheaper. However, shorter product releases cycles mean greater opportunity and need for regression testing. This creates resource management challenges as the burden of regression testing grows and competes with resources needed to test new feature functionality. As a remedy for this situation, many have proposed the use of test automation in the form of Acceptance Test Driven Development methods. Many managers, and even front line testers, tend to resist this approach. How can we diffuse the tension so that management will understand the necessary investments and the testers on the front line will take up the challenge with enthusiasm?

We’ll demonstrate the following:
• How ATDD shortens the feedback cycle in Agile environments
• Cost benefit analysis of implementing ATDD
• Challenges to automated ATDD
• How to identify the right place and time to implement ATDD